


Some Enchanted Evening

by LyraNgalia



Category: The Dresden Files - All Media Types, The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: F/M, First Date, Gen, Harry Dresden's luck with buildings, Harry Dresden's luck with women, Just how much can anything go wrong, Murphy's Law
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-06
Updated: 2013-07-20
Packaged: 2017-12-14 02:54:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/831874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LyraNgalia/pseuds/LyraNgalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Harry finally gets up the nerve to ask Murphy out to dinner, Thomas decides he's going to take out some insurance to ensure the date goes smoothly...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Thomas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DrkPhoenyx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrkPhoenyx/gifts).



> Written as part of the AO3 Fundraiser Challenge, for the prompt "Harry finally takes Murph out on a proper date only to get hilariously interrupted by the "monster of the week." ... Bonus points if Murphy is the one who actually kicks the monster's butt." I apologize for the lateness of this fic (and the fact that I'm not even done yet) but as you can see, the minimum of 500 words has sort of run away with me. But I hope you enjoy it all the same.
> 
> And thanks, as always, to BlueKiwi, who is the Elaine to my Thomas, and the best beta reader/cheerleader a woman could ask for.

My little brother is a lot of things. A wizard. A royal pain in the ass. A pyromaniac. An insufferable human being. Drowning ear-deep in denial.

A hero. 

But 'adept at dealing with the opposite sex' he is not.

So when he actually somehow managed to actually ask Murphy out on a date, I wasn't going to question it. I figure if I actually questioned it, he'll question it, and the next thing I know he'll have convinced himself it was a lust spell laid on him by a maenad and the stadium was on fire.  
  
Again.  
  
So I didn't ask him why he finally decided to get his head out of his ass. I ragged on him about his wardrobe, his hair, his Frankenstein's monster of a car, but not about the fact that he was actually going out, on a date, with Karrin Murphy. I did, however, make sure this was an actual date, with dinner and a show, rather than a stakeout or an invasion of faeries or some other stupid thing Harry Dresden decided was going to count as a date when sane people would consider it a cry for help.  
  
I also called the restaurant to make sure his reservation would be for a window as far from electronics and open flames as possible. Oh, and to leave flowers. Because Harry wouldn't remember to get Murphy flowers. Kevlar or bullets, probably. Flowers, not so much.  
  
But, the point of the matter was, my little brother was actually going out for dinner with the one woman who cared about him as a person rather than as a pawn or a meal, and I was going to make damned sure that it actually went off without a hitch.

What can I say, I'm a romantic.  
  


*****

  
The restaurant was across the street from Grant Park, with a clear view of Buckingham Fountain and Lake Michigan beyond, and even I was impressed by the choice. I guess my little brother has _some_ taste after all. Not that I'd tell him to his face, of course.

Still, momentary taste or not, Harry was still Harry, and I was pretty certain nothing good ever happened to Harry without something explosive following it sooner or later. Which was why I had left work early, letting a few girls take over at the Coiffure Cup for me with the excuse that I had a 'date', and headed over to the restaurant, to do a little recon.

And good thing I did too, because within minutes of checking out the place, I'd rousted a band of hobs from the back alley and made a tentative truce with a foxfaced Japanese spirit calling itself a kitsune for the evening. I'm not Harry. As far as I was concerned, the fox and the hobs could come back and burn the place to the ground in the morning, but as long as they kept clear for _tonight_...

Like I said. I'm not Harry.

But having cleared the major threats to an evening where my brother might actually have what normal human beings (and some of us monsters) would call a date, I settled into a spot across the park, just to keep an eye out.  
  


*****

  
Murphy's Saturn pulled up to the restaurant's valet stand and I breathed a sigh of relief I hadn't even realized I'd been holding. If Harry had insisted on driving the Blue Beetle, I might not have been able to resist the urge to cross the park, the street, and smack him over the head for being a clueless moron. I watched, taking a swig of a Coke I'd bought at the convenience store nearby, as she got out of the driver's seat and waited for the valet to open the passenger side door. Even my hearing wasn't good enough to know what had been said, but knowing Murphy and Harry, I'd put even money on her enjoying giving him a taste of his own chivalry. 

Harry scowled as he unfolded himself from the Saturn's interior, and I grinned to myself, pleased, as his expression basically told me everything I needed to know. That he'd wanted to take the Beetle, that Murphy's good sense had prevailed and that he thought her little plastic car didn't have near enough legroom. I relaxed a little when they made it into the restaurant without Harry making the nearby stoplight or Murphy's car explode, and settled into my seat to watch. And wait.


	2. Harry

My older brother is a meddling ass. 

I really should have realized it when all Thomas had said after finding out I'd asked Murphy to dinner was “It's about damn time, I hope you're taking her somewhere nicer than Burger King.” On the other hand, the flowers in a vase at Murphy's elbow were _really_ nice, and she seemed to like them, so maybe I can downgrade kicking his ass to a punch in the shoulder.

And I had to admit, it helped to plot what I was going to do to my meddling brother. It kept me from thinking about how the collar of my shirt was too tight, how I'm really terrible with ties, and how I really should try not frying Murphy's car stereo before the night was over. On the other hand, it was also keeping me from thinking how great Murph looked, how her blouse made her eyes practically glow blue, and how she was giving me the _weirdest_ look at the moment.

“Harry, you're staring,” she said, picking at the cuff of her sleeve.

I shook my head, as if doing that was going to get me to stop thinking about murdering my brother or the way Murphy's hair caught the setting sun coming through the windows. “I am not. I'm musing. It's wizardly.”

"By which you mean you're plotting how you're going to beat Thomas up for meddling," Murphy remarked, and I blinked. I swear, I might be the wizard, but sometimes I think Murph's cop skills are real magic.  
  
I gaped at her, at a spot just above her eyebrows. "I have no idea what you're talking about."  
  
Murphy laughed as the waiter came by with menus and a wine list thicker than some of my journals. "He sent the flowers under your name," she said, running a finger along the pale pink petal of a lily in said bouquet. I opened my mouth and she shot me a flat look. "What did you get me for Christmas last year, Harry?"  
  
"Hobbit-sized copy of The Hobbit," I answered promptly. She'd threatened to give me a black eye with it, but I'm pretty sure I saw it sitting on the bookshelf in her living room last week. "And that ward on your place." I looked at the bouquet my jerk brother sent, and had to admit, it wasn't my style. I had thought about bringing Murphy flowers and given up on the idea, but if I _had_ done it, I was pretty sure I'd have gone with daisies or something. Not lilies and some little white flowers and something that looked like it would be a garnish on one of our salads.  
  
She gave me another look and flicked the lily petal with a fingertip. 

"Point made," I admitted. "I'm still going to kill him."

Murphy laughed, and was about to say something else when the waiter came back, asking if we wanted to order wine or if we were ready to order dinner. I preferred a bottle of Mac's pale ale to any bottle of wine, no matter how French and expensive it was, and Murph was too much of a cop to drink at all when she expected to drive, so we just ordered dinner. I got steak with some fancy vegetables and something with a name I can only half pronounce that would probably taste just like mashed potatoes, and Murphy got the fish with more greens than I could name.

The waiter left. I found myself staring at the table, then at a spot to the right of Murph's ear, then at the flowers my meddling brother had sent because he thought I didn't know how to act on a date, then at the tip of Murphy's nose. It was sort of funny, how even though Murph and I have been friends for God only knows how many years, how (as she'd attest) I can never shut up, I was suddenly at a loss for words.

The silence stretched, and Murph fidgeted as much as I did. She opened her mouth once, stopped, and took a drink of water instead. It made me feel marginally better, that she didn't have anything to say either. But it didn't make me feel less like I was back in middle school again.

But thinking about middle school made me think of Elaine, and even I knew enough about women to know that bringing up your ex on a date isn't the best way to go. “So...” I said, looking around. “How was work?”

Murphy looked at me, blinked, and shook her head. “Fine,” she answered, sounding amused. “Worked a case about a suspicious looking mugging. You were there, remember?”  
  
Now it was my turn to blink. “Right. Yeah.” I rubbed my forehead. As much as I hated to admit it, Thomas might have a point about my being an idiot. “I was there.”  
  
She laughed, and I was about to laugh with her because this really was ridiculous, the two of us, not knowing what to say, when a sound caught both our attentions. The familiar crunch of metal on concrete.

Sometimes I wonder if I should reconsider my life when the sound of metal on concrete is _familiar._


End file.
